- Email: [email protected]
Alternatives to deforestation steps toward sustainable use of the Amazon rain forest
Book reviews
larly planning as a policy tool) and potential institutional changes required. Section 2, the document’s core, analyses, sector by sector, ‘Land use planning implications of impacts of and responses to climate change’. The final section sets priorities for future research. Included as appendices are details of the climate change scenarios used, and summary tables of links between climate change and land use planning determined by the study. Section 1 establishes an analytical framework which assesses the sensitivity of the present UK land use planning system ‘to a variety of potential preventive and adaptive responses to climate change and to different intensities of response’. Preventive planning responses and policies are aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in an attempt to offset future impacts. Adaptive responses and policies cater for climatic-change-induced impacts which might occur despite attempts to reduce greenhouse emissions. The three intensities of preventive and adaptive policy response chosen were: ‘business as usual’. which assumes no future policy change; ‘status quo’, which assumes attempts are made to maintain present conditions; and an ‘enhanced response’, which assumes adaptive or preventive policy measures. In Section 2, the following subject areas, or ‘sectors’, are analysed: coasts, transport, energy supply (combined heat and power. wind and tidal), buildings, electricity generation, water and recreation, agriculture, forestry and nature conservation. Climate change would have “potentially significant implications for land use planning’ for seven of these sectors. However, such planning implications were judged to be ‘less immediate and/or direct’ than the potential impacts on land use planning associated with energy supply and demand, coasts and transport. Coasts were highlighted because the uncertainty that future sea-level rise will occur is relatively low. As a result there is a strong chance of future sea-level rise impacts. although at present accurate damage and timing estimates cannot be made. In addition, there is a wide variety of planning
LAND USE POLICY April 1993
measures which can be implemented specifically to reduce future sea-level rise impacts. Transport was singled out because of the large potential for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in this sector. Such reductions could be achieved through a range of efficiency enhancewhich have ‘funment measures, damental links’ with land use planning in the UK. Interestingly, the authors link land use planning practices and policies that require modification in the light of climate change to the probability of their implementation. This approach can provide much-needed ‘real world’ emphasis to such documents, guiding policy makers on the probability of policy reform in the short term. However, in the longer term, in areas where land use planning is overdue for policy reform, much-needed adaptive planning measures may seem improbable. For example, land use policies aimed at adapting to sea-level rise were seen as unlikely except perhaps in the long term’. ‘There is probably a period of at least two decades’, say the authors, ‘in which to gather information and to formulate policies.’ a precautionary In contrast, approach to the sea-level and coastal land use planning has been adopted in Australia and New Zealand. For example, ‘Provision shall be made to recognize the potential impacts of
likely changes in sea level. This may include identifying and avoiding development in areas prone to erosion and accelerated erosion.’ Unlike their UK counterparts, Australasian coastal planners are not prepared to wait for better information in order to formulate sea-level rise impact mitigation policies.’ Indeed, this approach has recently been recommended for all coastal nations2 In summary, this document, lucidly written to stimulate discussion in the planning and decision-making communities. will do just that. Whether or not its assessments of the likelihood of policy responses will prove right is open to debate. But since creating debate is the purpose of this document, I suggest you order a copy and make up your own mind. Robert Kay Coastal Risk Management International Ltd Norwich, UK
‘New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement (Draft) Outcome 3.4, ‘Recognition of and provision for the mitigation of coastal hazards’, Department of Conse~ation, Wellington, New Zealand, 1992. *Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Global C~;mate Change and the Rising Challenge of the Sea, Report of the Coastal Zone Management Sub-Group Margarita Island Meeting, March 1992, p 25.
Saving the rainforest ALTERNATIVES TO DEFORESTATION Steps Toward Sustainable Amazon Rain Forest
Use of the
edited by Anthony B. Anderson Columbia University Press, New York, 7990, 28t pp
In the latter part of the 1980s disturbing reports of massive felling and burning of the Amazon rainforest reached the international press. These reports provoked worldwide concern over the fate of the forest, including in
Brazil where most of the destruction was taking place. Although the ultimate impact of deforestation on this scale was (and, to a great extent. still is) imperfectly known, fears of mass extinctions of plant and animal species, destruction of indigenous cultures and global climatic changes seemed well founded. It was in this foreboding atmosphere (early 1988) that a conference was held in the Amazonian city of Belem, Brazil, to discuss and debate possible alternatives to deforestation. The volume under review brings together 17 papers presented at that conference. During the so-called ‘Decade of
175
Rook
reviews
Destruction’ preceding the Belem conference, the vast majority of the literature on the Amazon rainforest focused, frequently in a sensationalist manner, on the rapid growth of the deforested area, the environmental and human costs of this deforestation, and its most important causes (usually blamed on government and big business). This type of literature served a useful purpose by calling attention - in Amazonian and non-Amazonian countries alike - to the severity of the problem. However, relatively little of this literature addressed in practical terms what could be done to halt or slow down the pace of tropical deforestation. This book is exemplary in that it directly confronts this neglected area of inquiry in an objective, scientific manner.
Ecosystem response After an introductory essay on the general theme of deforestation in Amazonia by the volume’s editor, a paper by ecologist Christopher Uhl et ul (‘Studies of ecosystem reponse to natural and anthropogenic disturbances provide guidelines for designing sustainable land use systems in Amazonia’) sets the stage for the rest of the volume. This excellent paper makes a number of key points. First, disturbances of the Amazon rainforest, both natural and human-induced, have been common throughout history. Second, the rainforest has an enormous capacity to regenerate once disturbed. Third, many of the recent human-induced disturbances of the forest are of such intensity (eg cattle raising) that the capacity of the forest to regenerate itself has been seriously impaired. The authors sensibly conclude that the most environmentally sustainable modes of development for the rainforest are those which involve the least amount of disturbance of the forest cover. They also hold out hope for the productive use of the millions of hectares of impoverished and abandoned pastureland in Amazonia. It is often assumed that before the European conquest the rainforest was an empty place virtually untouched by the hand of man. In fact many parts of Amazonia (as well as areas of rain-
176
forest in Mexico and Central America) supported dense populations for millennia at relatively high standards of living. A recurrent theme throughout much of the rest of the book is that modern-day development planners in Amazonian countries have much to learn from the traditional land management practices of these original inhabitants as well as from contemporary rural residents of Amerindian, Portuguese and African descent known as caboclos. The next nine drawing on examples from papers, Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Central America, describe and evaluate such practices. These range from ‘natural forest management’, involving lowinput agriculture or the non-predatory extraction of various forest products, to highly intensive agroforestry systems developed by Japanese immigrants in Brazil’s eastern Amazon. It is argued by the authors that, under certain conditions, all such practices represent sustainable alternatives to deforestation. The fact that most recent arrivals in the rainforest have not adopted environmentally sustainable practices is evidenced by wide expanses of ‘unproductive’ secondary forest and abandoned pastureland scattered throughout Amazonia. Three papers address the issue of whether these ‘badlands’ can be made productive once again. In one of them, agronomist Jean C.L. Dubois questions the premise that secondary forests are inherently unproductive. He illustrates this point through case studies showing how different societies have learned to manage secondary forest by planting valuable perennial species in the forest fallow or by harvesting the naturally regenerating forest itself in instances where it is dominated by species with economic value. The two other papers in this section deal with issues of lowproductivity or abandoned cattle pastures. Both conclude that, though difficult, it is technically possible to improve pasture productivity and to reclaim abandoned lands through better land management practices. The final section of the volume comprises three articles which concentrate on the social, political and economic factors affecting deforestation
in Amazonia. Ecologist Philip Fearnside provides an overview of current forms of land use in the region and concludes that most are unsustainable for both biological and economic reasons. He recommends accelerated research on sustainable alternatives to deforestation as well as various policy reforms, including a halt to road building and the elimination of government subsidies. Maria Helena Allegretti, a Brazilian anthropologist and social activist, proposes a more specific policy reform agenda. In one of the volume’s most interesting and significant papers, she proposes a new (at least in 1988) form of land use management known as the ‘extractive reserve’. Improvements in land tenure and in marketing systems carried out in these reserves would allow traditional rural populations (mainly rubber-tappers) to improve their economic security while preserving the forest. The final paper, by sociologist Donald Sawyer, closes the volume on a realistic and guardedly optimistic note. He first warns that. while the various alternatives to deforestation described in the book may be viable in a technical sense. social, political and economic factors will be critical determinants of their success on the ground. He concludes that an emerging environmental mentality and sense of empowerment among the residents of Amazonia may provide the spark for a new era of preservation.
Change Much has transpired in Amazonia since the papers in this book were written. Late in 1988 the assassination of Brazilian rubber-tapper leader Francisco Chico’ Mendes (to whom the volume is dedicated) further galvanized international public opinion on the issue of tropical deforestation. Within 12 months of his death Brazil announced a comprehensive package of environmental reforms known as ‘Our Nature’. They included the elimination of fiscal incentives for cattle ranching in the Amazon. improved monitoring of deforestation, and the inauguration of a 970 000 ha extractive reserve named after Chico Mendes in the Amazonian state of
LAND USE POLICY
April 1993
Book reviews Acre. Two years later, Brazil returned to democracy with the election of environmentally minded Fernando Collor de Melo as President. One of the new leader’s early accomplishments was reaching agreement with the rich industrial nations (the so-called ‘Group of Seven’) on a $250 million ‘Pilot Program to Conserve the Brazilian Rainforest’. Whether related to the above events or not, recent satellite images have revealed a dramatic reduction in the pace of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon - from a peak of perhaps 40 000 km* in 1987 to around 10 000 km* per year in the early 1990s. While this is good news indeed, it should not lull researchers and decision makers into a faise sense of security. Policy reversals, such as a decision to reinitiate major road construction in rainforested areas, could result in an acceleration of deforestation. On the
other hand, the current slowdown in deforestation is providing a welcome breathing space for carrying out further research on sustainable ways of using the rainforest. Such research will hopefully build on the fine work already begun in Alternatives to Deforestation. One would wish, however, that future research would be more interdisciplinary, combining the efforts of ecologists, foresters, agronomists and anthropologists with those of economists and financial analysts. In order to be truly sustainable, alternatives to deforestation must be not only technically sound but also profitable to the regional population. Dennis J. Mahar Chief, Environment Division Latin America & Caribbean Region World Bank Washington, DC, USA
Registering the land - pros and cons LAND REGISTRATION AND CADASTRAL SYSTEMS Tools for Land Information Management by Gerhard
and
Larsson
Longman Scientific Harlow, UK, 175 pp
and
Technical,
With dramatic land policy changes sweeping Eastern Europe and with information technologies becoming the norm for managing land records worldwide, an updated reference text on land registration and cadastral systems has been desperately needed. Gerhard Larsson’s new book provides an overview of parcel-based land record systems, focusing on some of the benefits, problems and methodologies entailed in introducing and improving them. It should be required reading for land managers and land use planners working in developed or developing countries. This book will help them to appreciate the relationship these systems have to larger land poli-
LAND USE POLICY
April 1993
cy issues, and introduce them to some of the principles involved and the various strategies that have developed in Europe, Africa and elsewhere. For more knowledgeable readers, Larsson has provided a clear and relatively concise synthesis of cadastral and land registration theories. As the author notes in the Preface, his purpose was not to develop new models but to provide an overview of existing methodologies. If readers are sometimes teased by the introduction of issues such as standards or costs. without really finding more than general statements, they are also rewarded by finding relatively unbiased descriptions and a thoughtful commentary based on the author’s extensive experience in developing countries. The first part of the book reviews the principles of land information systems (LIS), cadastres and land registration systems. The need for these systems is tied to increasing intensity of land use and to the subsequent need for information about property rights, Models for how various generic systems have evolved are presented and
then illustrated by descriptions of system development in specific countries. Perhaps the most significant contributions at this stage in the book are the overview of European systems, rarely found in English texts, and Larsson’s analysis of lessons that can be drawn from well-established systems, for example, that costs must be kept reasonable in relation to expected mediumterm results to maintain ongoing political support for system development. On the other hand, systems in North America and Australia (which Larsson classifies as being non-cadastral based) are treated superficially here and throughout the book. There is no mention of the lessons that might be learned from major investments in computerizing both textual and graphical land records in these countries, in developing standards and in creating innovative organizational structures to coordinate modern systems. In the second part of the book, Larsson documents information most often found only in scattered conference papers and reports. The general benefits of land registration and cadastral systems are reviewed and methods for calculating these benefits are presented. A third chapter outlines a methodology for determining the feasibility of introducing these systems, including a limited description of related costs. For the most part, the discussion on benefits repeats wellknown justifications without any rigorous questioning of the assumptions (eg property taxes will be fairer). However, Larsson provides more than the one-line descriptions found in most standard texts and he cautions that the specific jurisdictional conditions must be taken into account in deriving potential benefits realistically. Although topics such as costs (especially for maintenance) are not well developed, the model for determining feasibility is a useful guide for system evaluation. After a rudimentary outline of survey and adjudication methods and of aspects of the land (or text) register, Larsson provides a thoughtful, if controversial, section on related land policy issues - ie registration and group tenure, land consolidation strategies
177
larly planning as a policy tool) and potential institutional changes required. Section 2, the document’s core, analyses, sector by sector, ‘Land use planning implications of impacts of and responses to climate change’. The final section sets priorities for future research. Included as appendices are details of the climate change scenarios used, and summary tables of links between climate change and land use planning determined by the study. Section 1 establishes an analytical framework which assesses the sensitivity of the present UK land use planning system ‘to a variety of potential preventive and adaptive responses to climate change and to different intensities of response’. Preventive planning responses and policies are aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in an attempt to offset future impacts. Adaptive responses and policies cater for climatic-change-induced impacts which might occur despite attempts to reduce greenhouse emissions. The three intensities of preventive and adaptive policy response chosen were: ‘business as usual’. which assumes no future policy change; ‘status quo’, which assumes attempts are made to maintain present conditions; and an ‘enhanced response’, which assumes adaptive or preventive policy measures. In Section 2, the following subject areas, or ‘sectors’, are analysed: coasts, transport, energy supply (combined heat and power. wind and tidal), buildings, electricity generation, water and recreation, agriculture, forestry and nature conservation. Climate change would have “potentially significant implications for land use planning’ for seven of these sectors. However, such planning implications were judged to be ‘less immediate and/or direct’ than the potential impacts on land use planning associated with energy supply and demand, coasts and transport. Coasts were highlighted because the uncertainty that future sea-level rise will occur is relatively low. As a result there is a strong chance of future sea-level rise impacts. although at present accurate damage and timing estimates cannot be made. In addition, there is a wide variety of planning
LAND USE POLICY April 1993
measures which can be implemented specifically to reduce future sea-level rise impacts. Transport was singled out because of the large potential for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in this sector. Such reductions could be achieved through a range of efficiency enhancewhich have ‘funment measures, damental links’ with land use planning in the UK. Interestingly, the authors link land use planning practices and policies that require modification in the light of climate change to the probability of their implementation. This approach can provide much-needed ‘real world’ emphasis to such documents, guiding policy makers on the probability of policy reform in the short term. However, in the longer term, in areas where land use planning is overdue for policy reform, much-needed adaptive planning measures may seem improbable. For example, land use policies aimed at adapting to sea-level rise were seen as unlikely except perhaps in the long term’. ‘There is probably a period of at least two decades’, say the authors, ‘in which to gather information and to formulate policies.’ a precautionary In contrast, approach to the sea-level and coastal land use planning has been adopted in Australia and New Zealand. For example, ‘Provision shall be made to recognize the potential impacts of
likely changes in sea level. This may include identifying and avoiding development in areas prone to erosion and accelerated erosion.’ Unlike their UK counterparts, Australasian coastal planners are not prepared to wait for better information in order to formulate sea-level rise impact mitigation policies.’ Indeed, this approach has recently been recommended for all coastal nations2 In summary, this document, lucidly written to stimulate discussion in the planning and decision-making communities. will do just that. Whether or not its assessments of the likelihood of policy responses will prove right is open to debate. But since creating debate is the purpose of this document, I suggest you order a copy and make up your own mind. Robert Kay Coastal Risk Management International Ltd Norwich, UK
‘New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement (Draft) Outcome 3.4, ‘Recognition of and provision for the mitigation of coastal hazards’, Department of Conse~ation, Wellington, New Zealand, 1992. *Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Global C~;mate Change and the Rising Challenge of the Sea, Report of the Coastal Zone Management Sub-Group Margarita Island Meeting, March 1992, p 25.
Saving the rainforest ALTERNATIVES TO DEFORESTATION Steps Toward Sustainable Amazon Rain Forest
Use of the
edited by Anthony B. Anderson Columbia University Press, New York, 7990, 28t pp
In the latter part of the 1980s disturbing reports of massive felling and burning of the Amazon rainforest reached the international press. These reports provoked worldwide concern over the fate of the forest, including in
Brazil where most of the destruction was taking place. Although the ultimate impact of deforestation on this scale was (and, to a great extent. still is) imperfectly known, fears of mass extinctions of plant and animal species, destruction of indigenous cultures and global climatic changes seemed well founded. It was in this foreboding atmosphere (early 1988) that a conference was held in the Amazonian city of Belem, Brazil, to discuss and debate possible alternatives to deforestation. The volume under review brings together 17 papers presented at that conference. During the so-called ‘Decade of
175
Rook
reviews
Destruction’ preceding the Belem conference, the vast majority of the literature on the Amazon rainforest focused, frequently in a sensationalist manner, on the rapid growth of the deforested area, the environmental and human costs of this deforestation, and its most important causes (usually blamed on government and big business). This type of literature served a useful purpose by calling attention - in Amazonian and non-Amazonian countries alike - to the severity of the problem. However, relatively little of this literature addressed in practical terms what could be done to halt or slow down the pace of tropical deforestation. This book is exemplary in that it directly confronts this neglected area of inquiry in an objective, scientific manner.
Ecosystem response After an introductory essay on the general theme of deforestation in Amazonia by the volume’s editor, a paper by ecologist Christopher Uhl et ul (‘Studies of ecosystem reponse to natural and anthropogenic disturbances provide guidelines for designing sustainable land use systems in Amazonia’) sets the stage for the rest of the volume. This excellent paper makes a number of key points. First, disturbances of the Amazon rainforest, both natural and human-induced, have been common throughout history. Second, the rainforest has an enormous capacity to regenerate once disturbed. Third, many of the recent human-induced disturbances of the forest are of such intensity (eg cattle raising) that the capacity of the forest to regenerate itself has been seriously impaired. The authors sensibly conclude that the most environmentally sustainable modes of development for the rainforest are those which involve the least amount of disturbance of the forest cover. They also hold out hope for the productive use of the millions of hectares of impoverished and abandoned pastureland in Amazonia. It is often assumed that before the European conquest the rainforest was an empty place virtually untouched by the hand of man. In fact many parts of Amazonia (as well as areas of rain-
176
forest in Mexico and Central America) supported dense populations for millennia at relatively high standards of living. A recurrent theme throughout much of the rest of the book is that modern-day development planners in Amazonian countries have much to learn from the traditional land management practices of these original inhabitants as well as from contemporary rural residents of Amerindian, Portuguese and African descent known as caboclos. The next nine drawing on examples from papers, Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Central America, describe and evaluate such practices. These range from ‘natural forest management’, involving lowinput agriculture or the non-predatory extraction of various forest products, to highly intensive agroforestry systems developed by Japanese immigrants in Brazil’s eastern Amazon. It is argued by the authors that, under certain conditions, all such practices represent sustainable alternatives to deforestation. The fact that most recent arrivals in the rainforest have not adopted environmentally sustainable practices is evidenced by wide expanses of ‘unproductive’ secondary forest and abandoned pastureland scattered throughout Amazonia. Three papers address the issue of whether these ‘badlands’ can be made productive once again. In one of them, agronomist Jean C.L. Dubois questions the premise that secondary forests are inherently unproductive. He illustrates this point through case studies showing how different societies have learned to manage secondary forest by planting valuable perennial species in the forest fallow or by harvesting the naturally regenerating forest itself in instances where it is dominated by species with economic value. The two other papers in this section deal with issues of lowproductivity or abandoned cattle pastures. Both conclude that, though difficult, it is technically possible to improve pasture productivity and to reclaim abandoned lands through better land management practices. The final section of the volume comprises three articles which concentrate on the social, political and economic factors affecting deforestation
in Amazonia. Ecologist Philip Fearnside provides an overview of current forms of land use in the region and concludes that most are unsustainable for both biological and economic reasons. He recommends accelerated research on sustainable alternatives to deforestation as well as various policy reforms, including a halt to road building and the elimination of government subsidies. Maria Helena Allegretti, a Brazilian anthropologist and social activist, proposes a more specific policy reform agenda. In one of the volume’s most interesting and significant papers, she proposes a new (at least in 1988) form of land use management known as the ‘extractive reserve’. Improvements in land tenure and in marketing systems carried out in these reserves would allow traditional rural populations (mainly rubber-tappers) to improve their economic security while preserving the forest. The final paper, by sociologist Donald Sawyer, closes the volume on a realistic and guardedly optimistic note. He first warns that. while the various alternatives to deforestation described in the book may be viable in a technical sense. social, political and economic factors will be critical determinants of their success on the ground. He concludes that an emerging environmental mentality and sense of empowerment among the residents of Amazonia may provide the spark for a new era of preservation.
Change Much has transpired in Amazonia since the papers in this book were written. Late in 1988 the assassination of Brazilian rubber-tapper leader Francisco Chico’ Mendes (to whom the volume is dedicated) further galvanized international public opinion on the issue of tropical deforestation. Within 12 months of his death Brazil announced a comprehensive package of environmental reforms known as ‘Our Nature’. They included the elimination of fiscal incentives for cattle ranching in the Amazon. improved monitoring of deforestation, and the inauguration of a 970 000 ha extractive reserve named after Chico Mendes in the Amazonian state of
LAND USE POLICY
April 1993
Book reviews Acre. Two years later, Brazil returned to democracy with the election of environmentally minded Fernando Collor de Melo as President. One of the new leader’s early accomplishments was reaching agreement with the rich industrial nations (the so-called ‘Group of Seven’) on a $250 million ‘Pilot Program to Conserve the Brazilian Rainforest’. Whether related to the above events or not, recent satellite images have revealed a dramatic reduction in the pace of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon - from a peak of perhaps 40 000 km* in 1987 to around 10 000 km* per year in the early 1990s. While this is good news indeed, it should not lull researchers and decision makers into a faise sense of security. Policy reversals, such as a decision to reinitiate major road construction in rainforested areas, could result in an acceleration of deforestation. On the
other hand, the current slowdown in deforestation is providing a welcome breathing space for carrying out further research on sustainable ways of using the rainforest. Such research will hopefully build on the fine work already begun in Alternatives to Deforestation. One would wish, however, that future research would be more interdisciplinary, combining the efforts of ecologists, foresters, agronomists and anthropologists with those of economists and financial analysts. In order to be truly sustainable, alternatives to deforestation must be not only technically sound but also profitable to the regional population. Dennis J. Mahar Chief, Environment Division Latin America & Caribbean Region World Bank Washington, DC, USA
Registering the land - pros and cons LAND REGISTRATION AND CADASTRAL SYSTEMS Tools for Land Information Management by Gerhard
and
Larsson
Longman Scientific Harlow, UK, 175 pp
and
Technical,
With dramatic land policy changes sweeping Eastern Europe and with information technologies becoming the norm for managing land records worldwide, an updated reference text on land registration and cadastral systems has been desperately needed. Gerhard Larsson’s new book provides an overview of parcel-based land record systems, focusing on some of the benefits, problems and methodologies entailed in introducing and improving them. It should be required reading for land managers and land use planners working in developed or developing countries. This book will help them to appreciate the relationship these systems have to larger land poli-
LAND USE POLICY
April 1993
cy issues, and introduce them to some of the principles involved and the various strategies that have developed in Europe, Africa and elsewhere. For more knowledgeable readers, Larsson has provided a clear and relatively concise synthesis of cadastral and land registration theories. As the author notes in the Preface, his purpose was not to develop new models but to provide an overview of existing methodologies. If readers are sometimes teased by the introduction of issues such as standards or costs. without really finding more than general statements, they are also rewarded by finding relatively unbiased descriptions and a thoughtful commentary based on the author’s extensive experience in developing countries. The first part of the book reviews the principles of land information systems (LIS), cadastres and land registration systems. The need for these systems is tied to increasing intensity of land use and to the subsequent need for information about property rights, Models for how various generic systems have evolved are presented and
then illustrated by descriptions of system development in specific countries. Perhaps the most significant contributions at this stage in the book are the overview of European systems, rarely found in English texts, and Larsson’s analysis of lessons that can be drawn from well-established systems, for example, that costs must be kept reasonable in relation to expected mediumterm results to maintain ongoing political support for system development. On the other hand, systems in North America and Australia (which Larsson classifies as being non-cadastral based) are treated superficially here and throughout the book. There is no mention of the lessons that might be learned from major investments in computerizing both textual and graphical land records in these countries, in developing standards and in creating innovative organizational structures to coordinate modern systems. In the second part of the book, Larsson documents information most often found only in scattered conference papers and reports. The general benefits of land registration and cadastral systems are reviewed and methods for calculating these benefits are presented. A third chapter outlines a methodology for determining the feasibility of introducing these systems, including a limited description of related costs. For the most part, the discussion on benefits repeats wellknown justifications without any rigorous questioning of the assumptions (eg property taxes will be fairer). However, Larsson provides more than the one-line descriptions found in most standard texts and he cautions that the specific jurisdictional conditions must be taken into account in deriving potential benefits realistically. Although topics such as costs (especially for maintenance) are not well developed, the model for determining feasibility is a useful guide for system evaluation. After a rudimentary outline of survey and adjudication methods and of aspects of the land (or text) register, Larsson provides a thoughtful, if controversial, section on related land policy issues - ie registration and group tenure, land consolidation strategies
177